The West Virginia water contamination incident seems to get progressively worse, despite the state’s governor telling residents to drink water at their own risk; meanwhile, the U.S. government won’t let Israel expand its exports to China. These discoveries and more after the jump.

A union in New Zealand got fast food chains such as McDonald’s and Starbucks to raise their workers’ wages by 50 percent; Palestinian books don’t indoctrinate children against Jews after all; and perhaps, rather than fear Massive Online Open Courses, we should embrace this opportunity for cheap widespread online education. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Internet teaching deprives educators of the vital opportunity to learn who their students are, where they are intellectually and how best to help them grow, University of Virginia English professor Mark Edmundson argues in the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times.